The ramblings of me, mostly to do with the Theatre around the West Midlands. Any queries email me at contact@wright-writes.com, tweet me @WrightTheatre, or visit the contact me page. Thanks

I’ve been a Silly Cow…

Apologies (again) for the absence. I’m sure the next post will also start with that due to the months long gaps between the blog posts. Having had the email telling me to renew the domain recently, reminded me that I had the blog and how when I bought the domain I told myself that I’d try to make something of it, and I did try – but then I failed. So renewing it, maybe I’ll try again. No harm in trying is there?

So what have I been doing I hear you ask? (Well the 2 of you reading this in some random places that I’ve never heard of). Boring answer – work. My work life has changed. For those that weren’t aware, my job has always been a bit temperamental but recently this changed to being much more settled and so a lot of my time has gone towards this. Now on a bit of a break before heading back to work soon it’s given me a bit of time to breath.

The exciting answer to what I’ve been up to though is that I’ve just finished directing a play! Annoyingly I had so many ideas to blog throughout the process but as mentioned above, the job thing got in the way, and leaving the house at 7:30am and returning at 11pm several days a week, blog posts took a back seat. Which is a shame, as I’d have loved to have shared my experiences with you.

So I directed Silly Cow by Ben Elton at the Crescent Theatre in Birmingham. It was a massive challenge considering my only other previous directing experience had been a monologue and assistant director to the youth theatre production this year. Trying to ensure a comedy is funny is so difficult. After a few weeks the jokes had stopped being funny in rehearsals and so we had to believe that the audiences would find them funny even if we had stopped laughing. Luckily every performance we got laughs in the right places, laughs in unexpected places, and no laughs in the places we though would get the most! On top of that trying to control a cast was a mission within itself. Usually a director would have a production assistant (PA) but I was without one for most the rehearsal process so I had to make sure that I did all the admin jobs that I should have been able to pass on to my PA as well as lead rehearsals, attend meetings and go to work every day! It was a major challenge. In all honesty at times I hated it, a couple of times I told myself I’d never do this again as it all got too much for me and tempers flared in the rehearsal room – however, these things pail into insignificance as they were soon forgotten about and the shared goal to produce a great piece of theatre was remembered and we got on with it. And looking back on it properly – yeah, there’s things I’ve learnt, and I need to do it again to put things into action!

Production image

Production image

Production image

In Rehearsal

Production image

Production image

Production image

In Rehearsal

Production image

Sadly I don’t have access to official audience feedback and no one came to review it, but those that I know that came to see it were all positive about it. The parentals liked it (and I’d like to think I know when they’re not telling me the truth) which is the main thing.

So, hopefully I’ll get a few more posts posted in the coming few weeks. Might even try that whole film thing I tried last summer… I’ll do my best, and hopefully get things a bit busier on here.